Common Sandpipers

Lade - Lockdown Day 46 - warm, dry and sunny, e 1 - We were up and about early this morning for a circuit of the local patch as Barney doesn't like the heat, and today turned into a belter. New for the lockdown list were two Common Sandpipers (108) flying across south lake on bowed wings. A couple of male Cuckoos were going full tilt around the willow swamp where Blackcap, Sedge, Reed and Cetti`s warblers were all in good voice along with a cacophony of Marsh Frogs. Orange Tip and Speckled Wood butterflies were both new for the year by the ponds.
  Pat spotted an Angle Shades on the front door of the cottage when we returned, while in the moth trap seven species of macros were present including Pale Prominent new for the year. Sitting in the garden late morning and a Red Kite drifted over heading north, plus a few Swifts and a distant Greenshank calling.

                                 Angle Shades

                                Pale Prominent

  On a high hide and with a flat calm sea, just after midday, I tried a 45 minute seawatch off the Lade boardwalk but could only muster two distant Gannets, four Sandwich Terns, eight Great Crested Grebes and four Grey Seals. Whilst there the UK Border Force arrived on the scene as a RHIB pitched up further north on Greatstone Beach with incoming migrants of the human kind.

    `Snow` on the beach, Lade